Game Releases

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

God this is late, I've been so so busy. And unfortunately today is a short post.
So this might sound a bit familiar. I've posted Blinded By Light before, from the first Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack, and this is a remix from the new Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (aka FFXIII-3). And I think it's SO GOOD. The soundtrack is amazing. It's not quite as consistently mind-blowing as the FFXIII-2 one, but is more like the original's in that all of the songs are good, but there's a selection of really amazing songs. The sound is also a bit more in the style of the original, rather than XIII-2's very eclectic and varied styles. Mitsuto Suzuki's songs are regularly the best on the album, and he's just on fire with his percussion, but all three of the composers are good. It's kinda weird that the original's soundtrack was a solo effort, then the ensemble score of XIII-2 with dozens of artists, and now a small group doing XIII-3.

Speaking of Lightning Returns, uh, I want to buy it. It's a really really dumb idea as I'm going to dislike it just based on my own resistance to typical JRPG tropes, but from my own reading about the again-refined battle system and the batshit crazy plot I'm tempted to actually go for it.

Sorry, no links today. I'm still busy and most of it probably isn't uploaded anyway.

Friday, November 22, 2013

I still know nothing about this game. Google tells me it's a life simulator, which means nothing to me. I've caught on that it's anime as hell, but the soundtrack continues to be absolutely stellar. Like, unbelievably so. I guess one shouldn't underestimate a triple-A title that's actually focused on its music as a central point.

IMPORTANT: As this post is about story structure, I talk about and make reference to specific events from Korra: Season 1. I don't touch of Season 2, but if you wish to remain unspoiled on Season 1, you should watch it before reading this.

So, if you were looking even not-so-closely at the newest version of Avatar World, you'll see that the Chi mechanic is technically still incomplete. Not insomuch as the mechanic can't be used, but it lacks a major component of balance for multi-session games: MC Plots. The idea that spending your Chi contributes to the forward motion of the bad guys' schemes is a mechanism to counteract the power of Chi.

Oh yeah, I should mention: in the one playtest I was recently in using the new rules, the general feedback was that an automatic 7-9 wasn't quite enticing enough to them compared to chi's use as XP. My instinct says "I'm not sure how true that is of all groups" (we were all regulars with a large love of what happens on failure anyway, so the risk of rolling tended to be worth it), but I suspect that's just attachment to my mechanic. Of course, it was one game; nothing is quite changing until I see a little more feedback, but over the past couple weeks I'm starting to lean toward empowering Chi again, straight up to "bump your roll up from 6- to 7-9 or 7-9 to 10+", which is strong but I think that matched with Chi's dual use as XP and the trouble it causes with MC Plots will still scare down any constant use. It become a wickedly powerful tool in one-shots, where MC Plots are less relevant and XP isn't all that desirable anyway compared to success, but I'm still thinking it might be the smart move.

I'm getting ahead of myself though, those are changes for a future version. Today is about filling in a gap, or more accurately talking about filling in a gap. Let's start from the top.

What are MC Plots?
MC Plots are Avatar World's version of Fronts from Apocalypse World. Why change the name? Well, Plots sounds like TV show and movie stuff, which obviously runs deep in Avatar World's blood. Also I think it's more imminently obvious what we're talking about just from the name.
But what if I don't know Apocalypse World and fronts? Well, this is gonna be a standalone text, so let's try to describe them.
Plots are the device through which MCs organize the various troubles that are stacking up against the PCs. They have several components. Aside from the Name (self-explanatory), Plots have three major pieces: Tracks, Threats, and Moves.
Threats are the various forces and elements that comprise a Plot. They come in a bunch of types, basically split up by category of what they are. People are usually the driving force of such things, but whole movements ("the Equalists") or groups of people ("the Rough Rhinos") can be single threats. Threats needn't even be direct characters: "Foggy Swamp" was totally a threat in and of itself, and landscapes are a whole category of threat.
Moves are just what they sound like: special moves that change the way the PCs interact witht he front. These aren't actually given to the MC; they are exclusively custom moves, meaning they write them themselves for the game. They don't need to be a big deal, and I encourage all MCs to give a shot at writing some even if they're not confident in any design ability - you're not going to knock down the game with them, and it makes the game much richer. I can't provide them because they're explicitly linked to the specific Plots of your game. I could give you "When you wander alone in Foggy Swamp, roll+Natural. On a 10+ the swamp shows you visions of what you're looking for. On a 7-9, it shows you visions of something you don't want to remember and the Foggy Swamp Tribe knows your location." However, that presumes that Foggy Swamp is a place and threat in your game, and that the Foggy Swamp Tribe is an adversary of your game. Simply put, I can't write moves for literally every situation you could come up with, even if I restricted myself to the Avatar universe, which would be silly in the first place. This is where you get to make the rules of the game truly personal to your own game.
Tracks are today's main subject.

Okay, so Apocalypse World's Fronts had this thing called Countdown Clocks. Those clocks were a major theme of ApW, and were used whenever things happened in stages. All fronts had countdown clocks describing the path the Front would take as it moved toward achieving its goals. Countdown clocks all had the same shape, basically a circle split into six segments. Now, these clocks were intentionally reminiscent of the Doomsday Clock here in the real world, which isn't really important to what we're doing here, plus I think the clock might be a bit limiting.So what are Tracks? Well, they serve the same function: to outline the schemes of the Plot over time. Each block of a track is a step in the schemes of the Plot. Each block of a track also has a Chi cost associated with it, indicating how much it would cost to advance to that next level of the Plot.

This is the 1-block. This would mean it costs 1 Chi for the MC to cause the event associated with this step to occur.

This is the 2-block. It means the same as the 1-block, but costs an additional Chi.
In theory you could have a 3-block, but I don't think that's actually necessary.

This is a basic Track. It's a four step Plot, and each step costs 1 Chi to advance to. Say, for the Equalists, "Rallies are held across the city, and The Revelation is set," "The pro-bending tournament is attacked," "Cabbage Corp is publicly blamed as the Equalist's manufacturer," and "War is declared on Republic City." Notice that none of the steps are conclusive - they're all meant as impetus for player action.
It's also important to mention that just because an MC has Chi doesn't mean they have to spend it immediately - if it makes little sense for the Equalists to declare war right then, the MC just holds it til it feels right. The important part is that once they have the Chi, the pacing of the Plot is in their hands rather than the players'.
To be entirely honest, I could leave it right here. As the scale of what happens isn't set, you can have a four-track be bunch of small stuff inside of a less-important plot or have it be much more affecting. However, I think that what I have is a great setup to try and build something more interesting. Chi-based Tracks are pretty cool for guiding the pacing of the story. Since the MC gaining Chi essentially parallels player desperation, it puts some limits on the movement of the story, forcing meaningful or tough events to challenge players in order for the plot to advance, which feels right to me.
Let's look at some alternate tracks.

This is a front-loaded Track, requiring a bunch of stuff to happen before the Plot even kicks into gear. If this was your first Plot of the game, it means that character drama has to come first before all the big bad MC stuff comes in, which feels fitting to the shows. Aang and Katara and Sokka were all way tearing into each other before the Fire Nation ship showed up.
If this is a sub-sequent Plot, the 2 acts as a barrier to starting a lot of Plots, keeping the game focused.

This is a back-loaded Track. It basically says that it takes an extra bit of trial to trigger the final climax of the Plot, which describes the pattern of a lot of stories in general.
This is probably well-suited to being the track of the Main Plot Arc.

A bookended Track, this is a combination of both of the above tracks, needing a push to start and to go into climax.

A middle-loaded Track, the beginning and end come easily as they're the most dramatic parts usually, with the trials being long and tough.I go back and forth on whether I like this one.

What if we play with length? This one's 5 steps long. Heck, Apocalypse World ones are 6 long, but I had a hard enough time breaking down the Equalists into just 4 - I don't think I could come up with a good 5th step. Long ones like this are the sort of arc that goes multiple seasons: the entirety of the first show's main arc, Sozin's Comet, was probably 6 steps. Azula's arc was probably 5 long, as was Zuko The Adversary's arc.

A 3 step Tack is probably just right for a lot of Plots, especially if you throw a 2-block in there. Depending on how the group plays, this would probably be pretty good for a double-episode arc - you know, the ones that are two-parters. Siege of the North was probably a 3 step track with a 2-block in the end, "The Fire Nation attacks," "Zuko kidnaps the Avatar" "Zhou kills the Moon."

A 2 step Track might be good for a single episode Plot, but at this size I think it's probably just better to handle with your regular materials instead of prepping a Plot. I just wanted to have it here to talk about, I don't think you should use 2 step Tracks.

All of these leave me with a couple of unanswered questions.Should I present more of a toolbox approach, with multiple potential Tracks and how to build a Track for your Plot? Or should I find a stable solution (or a couple of them) and present those ones that I find best-suited for the game?
One is more about control and delivering a particular experience, the other allows for greater variation. I'm leaning toward "Toolbox" right now, if for no other reason than it being a lot easier on me, I don't have to try to find the optimal one or two.

Is there another way for the MC to gain Chi?
If presented with a group that doesn't spend their Chi much and likes to level up more, how do Plots advance? The way Fronts move forward in Apocalypse World is either according to fiction ("Have they been left alone long enough to get this done by now?") or through hard moves. The first is a bit of a no-brainer - I think the fiction probably supercedes the mechanic there. But hard move to advance, I dunno. Instead, I kinda think a good hard move might be for the MC to gain Chi - this means that if they really want to advance their Plots, they can, but it means being a bit softer on the players for the moment. And, functionally, it'll be the same most of the time, since Tracks are usually mostly composed of 1-blocks.
But by giving MCs this additional pathway, am I cutting off what I'm doing with the pacing at the knees? I dunno. That's why this is unanswered!

Monday, November 18, 2013

Well, sorry for the lateness. My past several days have been taken over by a lot of schoolwork and maybe also some Fire Emblem and Pokemon and A Certain Scientific Railgun (don't judge me). And because I don't feel like subjecting you to more anime tunes this week (even if I have some that I like), I'm plumbing a bit deeper into my collection to dredge up something old but good. The Chemical Brothers released Exit Planet Dust almost 20 years ago, and it remains an awesome album. The song holds some memory value to me, along with a few other songs from back in the day that my parents had on mixtapes that were used during long car rides (like the ones from NY to Montreal or Florida, or trips to Saskatchewan or eventually the long drive from NY to WA). I don't remember much about those trips, but the songs on the tapes stay with me. Ones that are burned pretty near the surface are Curve's Chinese Burn, Moby's version of the 007 theme, Wall of Voodoo's Mexican Radio, Train's Drops of Jupiter, A3's Woke Up This Morning (the full version of the Sopranos's opening, not the original). Lots more too, but those jump to my mind.

Listening to Exit Planet Dust again, I can hear the sounds that brought forth The Crystal Method's Vegas album. I could easily mistake Three Little Birdies Down Beats as a Crystal Method song.

Anyway, enough gazing into the past. I'm just gonna clone the links from the Sept/Hist Songaday post, those were good.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

I don't think I've made any secret of my distaste for the Tales of ____ games. They're formulaic, unnecessarily complex, and the general system has lacked noticeable innovation since, well, Symphonia (I was gonna be bitter and say "Phantasia" but the introduction of the third dimension did alter the game). The Tales games do have a decent track record with music though; while much of it is sourced from Phantasia back in the day, it's still excellent, and the reason that Summoning of Spirits is my favorite OCRemix album. This track is from Vesperia, whose soundtrack is generally not worth noting for either quality nor lack of quality, it's just there. However, the town theme in Dahngrest is stellar. This is just a good song.
Also, go watch the ongoing Tales of Vesperia LP at the kuvosa youtube channel, it's got Vicas and Geop and Kuvo and other people who I'm not as used to hearing and it's very funny while actually doing a decent job of showing off the game.

So I've actually had this essay written for around 2 weeks, but haven't managed to get a good timing of circumstances to post it, but the stars have finally aligned. This is an essay for my class on Martin Luther. It's a pretty tough class, with a lot of reading, but it's really informative since I knew nothing about Lutheranism, despite going to a Lutheran university. This was essentially our midterm.

We had a selection of questions from which to choose our prompt, and here's the one I picked:

In his sermon on "Two Kinds of Righteousness," Luther offered a reforming insight concerning the relationship between God and humanity. What was his teaching on justification by grace (i.e. the gift of righteousness)? How was this view different than the teaching and practices with which he was raised? Why did he consider this teaching the core insight of his reform project?

It was probably the most broad of the topics. The others were about his adjusted view of Christ (no longer viewing him as a ruler and judge), his stance on the meaning and lens through which to view the Bible, his dedication to reform of the Mass, and his "paradoxical" view on the freedom and servitude of a Christian.

Let's disclaim!As usual, this is my essay, made available so I can potentially
receive feedback and to help others learn what I'm learning myself. I'm
no expert, so seriously, none of the would-be paper thieves out there
should use or even cite this. Still, I think I learned a lot to be able
to write the essay, and hopefully you learn something too!
And if you know something about the subject, let me know if I got
something right/wrong, or if you have interesting insights or thoughts
about it! Same with folks who know things about writing essays! And I do
love hearing when just other regular folks get some education out of my
work.

In
the opening years of the 16th Century, a young German by the name of
Martin Luther was growing increasingly frustrated by the Catholic Church and
the practices of the Christian community. With the Black Death only 150 years
prior and the Italian Renaissance winding down, there were major changes
affecting European civilization. The Black Death had been catastrophic in
ruining the laity's trust in God as the dead began to pile up. Terrified of the
angry wrath of God and fearing for their immortal souls, Europeans demonstrated
a sudden surge of interest in one of the Church's most important Sacraments:
penance. This sacrament allowed the people to cleanse themselves of sins they'd
committed in the here and now, rather than in purgatory, where “they would
sweat out every unremitted sin before they could see the gates of heaven.”[2]
The traditional method of penance, confession, was supplemented with
certificates of indulgence, documents purchased to directly shave years off of
one's stay in purgatory. The sale of indulgences was not the first time that
the Church had placed salvation as a reward for monetary contribution (for
example, crusading nobles had been able to make large donations to the Church
in return for salvation), but it was the most blatantly monetary and the most
widespread, made possible by Gutenberg's invention of the printing press;
indeed, indulgences were one of the very first uses of the Gutenberg press[3].
Later, the same invention would allow Martin Luther an unparalleled audience
for his teachings that would ultimately split the Church. Luther, a student of
the humanist ideology of study of the classics and ad fontes[4],
eventually uncovered an entirely new interpretation of Scripture that changed
the nature of salvation from something achievable to something received by the
grace of God. This idea of justification by grace and Luther's arguments for it
and extrapolated from it was quickly deemed threatening, and later heretical,
by the Church, but became revolutionary through the whole of 16th
Century Europe and provided the basis of the entire Lutheran movement.

In
order to better understand the gravity of the reforms Luther proposed, it is
first important to understand the justification through works structure that
was universal throughout Christianity (or at least Roman Catholicism). Prior to
Luther, the Church was unanimous on the idea that, in order to get into heaven,
one needed to complete good works. Christ was not only a sacrificial martyr,
but a king and a judge, depicted “seated on his throne” and providing either a
lily, “symbolizing the resurrection,” or a sword[5]:
salvation or damnation. One was meant to, as one preacher put it, “Do what is
within you!”[6]
meaning that people who tried their best to do good would be saved, provided
one important stipulation: that they followed the rules set out down by God
through scripture and through the Church. Confession was intense, drawing up
even the most minor of sins as a grave offense, and the burden was infinitely
greater on monks. Martin Luther during his time as a monk was nearly
overwhelmed by the burden, only barely avoiding despair thanks to his overseer
and friend Staupitz[7], and
the rigor with which he pursued the cleansing of his soul of even the slightest
tinge of sin made him sickly and deprived his body, likely resulting in the
severe systemic illnesses that plagued him later in life.[8]
And though Luther was not the first to suggest alternative means of
interpreting the process of salvation, all others, including mystic Johannes
Tauler, humanist Erasmus, and the heretic Jan Hus were united in their
understanding of salvation: “Christians must do something to persevere and be
saved.”[9]
After a long life of suffering under the pressures of this system, and spurred
to dispute with the Church not only because of their method of providing
indulgences but also because of their strong and oppressive refusal to even
discuss their use, Luther came across a new interpretation of the nature of
salvation. What Luther found, initially in an overlooked phrasing of Psalm 72[10]
but later found throughout the whole of the Bible, was that “like the
righteousness or strength or wisdom of God, it is that with which we are wise,
just, and humble, or by which we are judged,”[11]which
implies that righteousness is a gift from God, given without regard for works.
Everything came together in late 1518 or early 1519, when Luther had an
epiphany, putting all of his disparate thoughts about his interpretation of the
Bible behind the single conviction that “He who through faith is righteous
shall live.”[12] Within
the year he'd released “Two Kinds of Righteousness”, and a year later released
his most clear text outlining his complete position and argument for this idea
of justification by grace, “The Freedom of a Christian”.

“Two
Kinds of Righteousness” puts forth, as the name suggests, two different forms
of righteousness that both exist in the Christian. The first is alien
righteousness, or “the righteousness of another, instilled from without.”[13]
This righteousness is “given to men in baptism and whenever they are truly
repentant” as a gift from God. The element that separates this idea from the
traditional justification through works was the idea of what it took to receive
this grace. Luther did not agree with the older belief that one needed to do
good, to act as orimitate Christ, God,
or the saints in action. In fact, Luther often espoused the opposite belief,
that attempting to embody Godliness was actively detrimental to one's
salvation, as it creates a false sense of superiority and pride in the self,
“setting himself up as an idol in his own heart.”[14]
Instead, justification by grace requires that a person recognizes and accepts
that nothing they do will ever satisfy the requirements of God. As evidence
Luther puts forward the commandments, which he does not consider rules to be
followed by messages through which we “recognize our inability to do the good,
and they cause us to despair of our own powers.”[15]
For example, no one can completely and always simply decide to not covet, and
thus all people are sinners, and this concept is true to all the commandments.
This was because, as Luther remarked early in his teaching career, “human
beings can do nothing except love themselves.”[16]
But of course, Luther's idea of justification by grace is not that none of us
will be given heaven, meaning that Luther has also proposed a method through
which righteousness is acquired, and for Luther that method involves
faith in Christ. Christ died for the Christians, and through faith, “Christ's
righteousness...,” which is infinite as the righteousness of God, “...becomes
our righteousness and all that he has becomes ours.”[17]
This idea that the faithful has all that is Christ's and that Christ takes on
all that is theirs is a central idea throughout “The Freedom Of A Christian,”
which characterizes this connection in the same terms that the Bible depicts
marriage (referencing the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament by doing so)[18],
and this bride and groom metaphor is consistent throughout that text. By taking
on all of the faithful's sin, it is swallowed up in Christ's unending
righteousness, “for it is impossible that sin should exist in Christ,”[19]
and the faithful is priveleged with all of Christ's own righteousness. In this
perfect union, even a flawed human sinner can be saved by faith in Christ. It
is this alien, inner righteousness that a Christian becomes “lord of all,
completely free of everything,”[20]
untethered from the Law[21]
(meaning the restrictions God places on man, not man's own laws on each other,
which Luther supported as an institution to be followed[22][23][24])
and all the rules of scripture provided the faith is true.

The
second kind of righteousness, deemed “proper righteousness,” is a more
complicated topic. Luther's explanation of justification by grace required the
dismantling of justification through works, but Luther had no intent to condone
or simply permit sin and violation of the Law simply on grounds of faith.
Instead, he needed a rationale for restricting unruly and unchristian behavior
without implying that external works had an influence on one's salvation. In
“The Freedom of a Christian” Luther directly tackles this question. When asked
why good works are commanded if faith alone is sufficient, and why one cannot
simply be content, Luther responds that “this would be true if we were only
inner or spiritual persons...For as long as we live in the flesh we only begin
to make progress toward that which will be perfected in a future life,”[25]
by which he means righteousness. This proper righteousness is linked to alien
righteousness, used to cultivate that faith and at the same time the product of
it. Proper righteousness “complete[s] the first for it ever strives to do away
with the old Adam and to destroy the body of sin. Therefore it hates itself and
loves its neighbor; it does not seek its own good, but that of another.”[26]
And it is those two elements that comprise proper righteousness; as termed in
“The Freedom of a Christian”, “Controlling the Body” and “Service to the
Neighbor.” The former is about controlling the ego and acting without thought
of gain, as God has already provided salvation. Though the flesh is selfish,
“the spirit of faith cannot tolerate this,”[27]
and disciplines the body toward humility – but not a self-satisfied humility
that one was saved as Luther often feared,[28][29]
but a humility that aided others even though they were a sinner thanks to their
faith in Christ. This unselfishness should then be turned to the neighbor.
However, Luther was not resentful of those who had not yet accepted Christ, who
he called “weak in faith.” He did believe in resisting those that would enforce
works as the means to salvation and press that belief on others, as he
considered the ancient pharisees and the contemporary Church to be doing,
succinctly summarized when Luther writes “we ought to accept and nurture the
faith of those who are weak, but we should resist boldly those who obstinately
insist on works.”[30]
Christians should be not only dutiful in their responsibilities and compliant
to ceremony and ritual not for righteousness's sake, but to be an example of
faith for their neighbors[31]
and not cause offense or scandal[32].
He urges the faithful to be as Christ to all others, accepting their sins and
sharing the righteousness they are linked to through Christ.[33]
Without fear of damnation, the faithful exercising proper righteousness can
grow the Christian community, not for selfish reasons, but for the benefit of
the potential community, all while acting in a behavior befitting the ancient
prophets and Church fathers in the scripture.

The
largest impact Luther had was to upend the existing monopoly on European
religion held by the Catholic Church, breaking down their supreme authority
over the 'one true way' to interpret the scriptures. Through justification by
grace flowed all of Luther's other arguments; for example, indulgences became
improper as they were selfish concept on the Church's part, a system that
enforced the idea of justification by works through fear, and an unrighteous
act on the part of the buyer, who could have spent the money in an unselfish
way. He discarded many sacraments for their reliance on works and their lack of
support in scripture. He even opposed the very existence of a hierarchical
church with authority over the lay people on the grounds that Christ is
embodied in all faithful, and that all are equal with regard to salvation – the
actions of of an ordained priest or an avowed monk makes them no more likely to
be saved[34].
However, the flowering of other reformers who embraced parts of components of
his justification by grace were often in conflict with him, and he became quite
bitter later in life, debating and disputing his interpretation and others',
despite having been the one to spark the fire of scriptural re-interpretation.
He's left formal letters of argument against Zwingli's followers, the
predeterminist Calvinists, the re-baptizing Anabaptists, the Swabian peasants
who would use his beliefs to enforce their political rebellion, and other
divergent threads of the Protestant Reformation. Despite all the alternative
points of view though, Luther's justification by grace as presented in “Two
Kinds of Righteousness” and “The Freedom of a Christian” started a complete
revolution of religious reform that continues to this day.

[1]As it
was not specified whether or not to use Ibid. in the citations, despite its
common use in Chicago, I've not done so here

[2]James M. Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and his Career,
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press,2003), 42.

[3]James
M. Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The
Story of the Man and his Career, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 42.

[4]James M. Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and his Career,
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003),
39, 47.

[5]James M. Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and his Career,
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003),
41.

[6]James M. Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and his Career,
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 73.

[7]James
M. Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The
Story of the Man and his Career, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 81.

[8]James
M. Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The
Story of the Man and his Career, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 55.

[9]James
M. Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The
Story of the Man and his Career, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 74.

[10]James
M. Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The
Story of the Man and his Career, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003),
88-89.

[11]James
M. Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The
Story of the Man and his Career, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 88.

[12]James
M. Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The
Story of the Man and his Career, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003),
134-135.

You know, for a paper with a minimum of 1250 words and a maximum of 1500, I wrote 2100, and there's another 700(!) in the citations which I'm allowed to discount. This is a beast of an essay.

But while I haven't received my grade for it yet, in another correspondence with my professor he mentioned that he had just finished reading my essay and that is was wonderfully-crafted with great insight and fluency, at a solid master's level, and that's making me feel pretty awesome.

Well, I have more to do for this class right now, so off I go to write an outline.